Half-Life 2: Episode Two Discussion

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its confusing me that the fact, they lauch half life one and two already, but making separated episode for half life two...i hope it doesnt an omen. I hope gordon freeman wont be such dumb like doesnt talk anything even in cut scene cinematic!! weee...gordon is a pathetic goat!!

All HL2 releases are continuations of the previous release, not sub-releases. I personally applaud Valve for shorter less obtusive "episodes" rather than over drawn out full releases that take forever to create.

And, no Gordan will never talk. In the story Gordan is YOU! Besides, don't women like the strong silent type anyway?

As Gabe Newell has said in an interview, naming the episodic trilogy as episodes of HL2 is a bit of a misnomer. The 3 episodes together essentially comprise HL3 (thus the next full game release should be HL4, although they will probably call it HL3). I think the reason they used the HL2 name was because the episodes are a direct continuation of the HL2 story, unlike the big time gap that occurred between HL1 and HL2 while Gordon was in stasis (10-20 years, depending on who you talk to).

The only thing I know about Ep 3 is what you learn in Ep 2 and Portal, and some speculation based on that.

You'll be heading to the Borealis, a ship owned by Aperture Science (the company in Portal), located somewhere in the Arctic circle. The ship likely contains some sort of portal technology, like the portal gun seen in Portal. In Ep 2 Eli Vance wanted you to destroy the ship (no doubt to prevent the portal technology falling into the Combine's hands), but Isaac Kleiner wanted you to use the technology to help defeat the Combine. No doubt Alyx will want to comply with her father's wishes, but I suspect that at some point you'll have to use the portal gun in order to destroy the ship, probably in a manner similar to the gravity gun levels at the end of HL2. While on the ship, you'll also have to discover the fate of Judith Mossman, and rescue her if she is still alive.

Finally, there will no doubt be some sort of confrontation with the Combine advisors. I suspect this will ultimately result in the expulsion of the Combine forces from Earth, bringing the HL2 story arc to a close. No doubt in his moment of victory Gordon will once again be snatched away by the G-Man and put in stasis, to await his next full-length game outing.

Ironically in May 2006 Valve described the HL2 episodes as 'a trilogy...that will conclude by Christmas of 2007'. Originally the episodes were to be released as a full expansion titled "Half-Life 2: Aftermath" but after missing a November 2005 release date Valve decided on a new marketing strategy. Rather than spend years developing a full expansion why not break it up into smaller, low-cost episodes and release them every few months through Steam? Like all good plans it changed. In May 2006 Valve pushed the release of Episode Two from Q4 2006 to Q3 2007.